Racing Is Life - The Beryl Burton Story [DVD]

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The sense that aerodynamics have been a complete game-changer in modern time trialling is repeatedly confirmed by anyone with experience across the eras.‘It’s another leg,’ said Dr Jamie Pringle, who worked as the head of science and technical development at the Boardman Performance Centre. Chris Boardman himself agrees and, having been head ‘secret squirrel’ for British Cycling between 2004 and 2012, became an authority on aerodynamics. ‘We found that expenditure to go the same speed can differ enormously,’ he said. ‘It’s mostly about body position. Efficiency has changed because of knowledge and technology.’ Burton’s achievements on the bike were intimately tied to, and often indistinguishable from, her life off it. Cycling was her sport, hobby, social life and means of transport. However, in an era when professional cycling did not really exist – especially for women – it was not a job.

I don’t think people who knew her outside of cycling necessarily knew she was a great cyclist…she wasn’t showy,” Wilson says. Ken Nichols and Maureen Nichols, Mud Sweat and Gears: A History of the British Cyclo-Cross Association, Mousehold Press, 2011. Wilson’s book, along with a play written by Maxine Peake in 2012 and William Fotheringham’s 2019 biography, aims to relocate Burton from the relative wilderness to a place among the greatest British athletes of all time.I spoke to a journalist called Sue Mott who interviewed Beryl in the early 80s … and she said that she had never met a sportsperson who was so driven and focused as Beryl even having known those sorts of people as well [like Steve Redgrave and Andy Murray],” he says.

Burton worked on a rhubarb farm, cleaned houses, and worked on the biscuit counter at the local Co-op supermarket alongside her record-breaking exploits.With that in mind, my only gripe is that ‘Beryl’ is sometimes in danger of becoming mawkish in its level of reverence for its heroine; when we’re told a record she broke remains unbeaten today, the audience break into applause, and the actors do too. The play ends with a roll call of her achievements, the stage laden with trophies. It’s astonishingly formidable, but we’ve just spent two hours learning what an incredible woman she was – we don’t need to have it, quite literally, spelt out to us. She set a 12-hour time-trial record in 1967, covering 277.25 miles, beating the men’s record by 0.73 miles.